


Nine Things Rowan Marlow

by Lilliburlero



Category: The Marlows - Antonia Forest
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Angst, Architects, Auntliness, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff, Future Fic, Hurt No Comfort, Nuns, Omega Verse, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-02 09:46:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4055458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilliburlero/pseuds/Lilliburlero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nine Rowan vignettes.</p><p>Advisory: one A/B/O AU setting (no sexual or anatomical content).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [white_hart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/white_hart/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angst.

The first time Rowan heard a conversation about Judith Oeschli fall silent on her approach she damn nearly shat a brick. After the third or fourth she realised that the gossips suspected nothing of the Marlows’ involvement in Edward’s disappearance. It was just that her presence made them somehow shy of platitudes about maternal feeling and responsibility. Indeed, she did not know what she might contribute to such a discussion: the caustic remarks about blackmail with which she suppressed her own unease would strike that company as lofty and cruel; anything else, she feared, might betray her, betray them all. In time there proved no more to say on the topic, and Rowan was left alone with her dumb and wretched guilt.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU: Nuns!

Reverend Mother stood looking out of the bay window; the red and gold of the stained glass played in reflection across her veil and guimpe.

‘D’you mind me asking?’ her visitor enquired nervously, fidgeting with the clasp of her handbag. ‘Is it something you believe? Or would you rather not say?’ 

‘It depends,’ she said after a pause, resting one knee girlishly on the cushion of the window seat. Her interlocutor found herself transfixed by an abbess’s grimy crepe sole. ‘I mean―what I mean is for quite long stretches I do, and then for quite long stretches I don’t. It just depends.’ 

‘Which way are you now?’ 

‘Not.’ She turned with a wild and inscrutable smile.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unresolved Sexual Tension.

Had Nick somehow managed to intimate that Esther Frewen was a Florentine vision rather than the damp, timorous potato that she had vaguely imagined, Rowan might not have been so discouraging, last Christmas, of her sister’s maintaining the friendship. They’d clearly made it up, coming sauntering hand-in-hand across the car-park, Nick swinging her overnight case so energetically as almost to overtopple herself, Daks prancing at Esther’s heel. Did Nicola recognise Esther’s beauty, Rowan wondered, or―she pictured the track of her thoughts as one through a perilous mire, and hurriedly looked down at her cracked and yellowed nails. A yelp of salute provoked reflex action, and Rowan found her arms full of black wriggle and tongue.

‘Lor’,’ said Nicola. ‘You are honoured. I don’t think he ever―’ 

‘Oh,’ said Rowan, ‘I’m sure he did, to Binks―’ and caught Esther’s green eye, at once icy and molten. It was, she thought, going to be a _tricky_ half-term weekend.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crack AU: A/B/O.

‘We don’t know, really,’ Nicola said awkwardly. She frowned at Lawrie. But all our family always have started as, you know, As―’

‘Even Ginty, and no-one thinks she’s a bit dom―it’s why there are so many of us, for one thing, even though Father’s in the Navy―when his leaves are at the same time as Mummy’s―’ 

‘Shut _up_ , Lal,’ Nicola snapped furiously. ‘Tim can’t possibly want to hear that―’ 

Tim, whose family of resourceful, adaptable betas regarded Edith, their _anomaly_ , with the amused condescension of people who have elevated their nominal inferiority into a point of pride, actually rather _did_. A whole houseful! It must be Bedlam. 

But she shoved her hands deep into her coat pockets and, wobbling slightly as the train went over points, said, ‘Aunt Edith talks quite a lot about your family. ‘Karen, of course―she’s head girl, she thinks an awful lot of her. Subtle, she says, for an―not the usual bossy manner, but she gets things done. And what’s the next one, Rowena?’ 

‘No. Rowan.’ 

‘Yes, of course―sorry. She’s the one who’s good at games―what was it? Something about her being an excellent person to have in a team because always played best at the point of surrender―’ 

At the time Nicola blushed with pleasure, but on coming to know the Headmistress and and her Niece a little better, remembered the words and wondered if they really were a compliment.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Future fic.

‘If the architectural tone of this bloody country weren’t set by a jug-eared chump with no greater ambition than to be a used sanitary product you’d be a household name, Ro. And Turpin Mansions would be listed, not scheduled for demolition.’

‘You’re very kind.’ She stepped carefully over a cracked paving stone, stopped and leaned on her walking stick, looking with a wry smile along the snaking concrete blocks, dotted with dingy laundry and satellite dishes. ‘I do think if we’d not been forced to compromise from the start, it might’ve had a chance.’ 

‘It still has a chance―the Twentieth Century Society―’ 

Rowan’s head turned with a saurian rapidity that seemed both at odds with and apt to her eighty-four years. ‘I really rather wish they _wouldn’t_. We were full of the best intentions, but they could scarcely have been more naïve and condescending. It didn’t work. The week it opened, people crapped in the lifts. It’s nemesis that clobbers you, isn’t it, when it’s hubris you’ve got?’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turpin Mansions is this AU's version of [Robin Hood Gardens](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hood_Gardens).


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First ~~time~~ kiss.

Rowan pulled back uncertainly from a kiss as practised as it was passionate. She hoped she’d acquitted herself with reasonable aplomb and insouciance, or at least, that her total inexperience was not evident.

‘That was rather pleasurable,’ she said after an appreciable pause. ‘Might we do it again some time?’ 

Lois laughed with her customary charm. ‘Of course. But let’s go down and see the lists for the cup match against Compton first.’


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aunt-routine fluff.

‘Sweet! Mint early 80s vintage like this would cost about seventy quid in that boutique in Colebridge.’ Pamela held the dress against her shoulder. ‘Will it fit me, do you think? Why was everyone, like, a size _four_ back then?’

‘Even if it does, you'll look like an optical illusion in it,’ Giles remarked, fatherly. ‘Enough to make a chap sick in Spithead. Marion _did_ offer her something new for Christmas, Rowley, but she would have the cash instead. Which of them did that one belong to?’ 

‘Nick, I think―yes―don’t you remember? The second Christmas we were―’ Rowan checked herself composedly. ‘I think maybe she only wore it for the kids’ parties. You run and try it on, Pam, and if it needs altering I’ll see if I can sweet-talk old Miss Gates into an emergency job.’ 

‘Cheers.’ With the unsettling facility of adolescence, Pamela dropped her streetwise swagger and darted a kiss at Rowan’s cheek. ‘Certificated First Class Aunt,’ she whispered.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hurt, not a lot of comfort.

Rowan jumped the last three steps in a delight of hubris, and felt the instant crunch of nemesis as her ankle turned over.

Lois, following, winced sympathetically. ‘Oof. Are you OK?’ 

Rowan was not at all sure she was. But the Juniors’ first match of the term was at two that afternoon, against Linden House School for Girls and Kindergarten: and sprain or no sprain, they could pose no serious opposition.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not really smut at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [this post.](http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2015/06/nsfw-fun-games-you-have-a-vestibule/)

‘Well, it makes me I feel like I ought to have an aspidistra and a hatstand.’

Rowan rested her cheek on Fernanda’s left thigh. 

‘’S just what it’s called. I found it in a old _Grey’s Anatomy_ , in the library at home. Must have belonged to Cousin Jon’s sister―she was a surgeon.’ 

‘Well, I suppose a good lick and a touch-up wouldn’t go amiss―’ 

‘Right out of luck. I’m an architect, not a painter and dec―’ 

Fernanda grasped a handful of fair curls and with a snort of laughter, swung her free leg over Rowan’s shoulder.


End file.
